


M is for Pirates

by buttercups3, dareyoutoread



Category: Revolution (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-09-17
Updated: 2013-10-13
Packaged: 2017-12-26 20:33:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/970001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buttercups3/pseuds/buttercups3, https://archiveofourown.org/users/dareyoutoread/pseuds/dareyoutoread
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's a PIRATE AU. What more do we need to say? Cursed treasure, sea shanties, cutlass fights, talking parrots, and a ship named the <i>Charm</i>. Dip your toe in the insanity, and watch out for mermaids. You know you'll love it. (No for sure rating or warnings yet - it's early - but please do take care that our ribald piratey language and themes do not offend your delicate sensibilities.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Fool's Errand

The sky is a pale blood red as the sun creeps above the horizon, and between that and an already uneasy wind that toys with the sails like a doxy’s skirts, Captain Sebastian Monroe knows it’s bound to be a foul day.

Even the _Charm_ feels restless, lines quavering, sails luffing in the uncertain wind. Bass swears he can feel the timbers shiver under his boots as he mounts the stairs to the quarterdeck.

If he were a superstitious man, he’d bend rudder and point the _Charm_ for the nearest port.

Instead, he’s chasing down a rumor. And today, that rumor takes the form of a tiny merchant vessel, just in view off the lee side of their bow. Bass crests the stairs and gives a nod to the helmsman, noting that his parrot is sitting on the wheel between spokes like _he’s_ steering the vessel, then pauses, taking note of the wind. “Let’s come about two points leeward, shall we? Their captain is either too inexperienced or too frightened to know better, but he looks to be directly downwind of us.” He claps the helmsman on the back with a devilish grin, and orders, “Take the wind out of his sails.”

His Quartermaster, Jeremy Baker, standing a few feet behind the helmsman and watching the merchant ship’s progress, nods in approval of Bass’s tactic and snaps orders at the morning watch until the sheets are properly set and the sails trimmed for their new course. (Bass has spent close to eight years staunchly refusing to appoint a First Mate, and by now, Jeremy has essentially gotten used to doing the job without the title. It’s something Bass appreciates about the man.) Really, it won’t even take flying at full sail to catch up to the merchants, and Bass is only employing his wind-stealing tactic to demoralize the little ship’s crew before they catch them. In his experience, a crew that already believes themselves to be outmanned puts up a poor fight. 

As the distance closes between the _Charm_ and the tiny merchant vessel, Bass tips back his hat and squints at the mainmast in the morning sun. “Quartermaster,” he shouts over his shoulder as he heads for the stairs. “Hoist the colors.” 

“Hoist the colors!” The shout echoes from Jeremy’s lips across the deck, taken up by the rest of the _Charm_ ’s crew like a battle cry.

“Hoist the colors!”

“Hoist the colors!” 

“ _Hoist the colors!_ ” 

There’s a ripple of wind through canvas, and a shadow momentarily blocks out the sun slanting toward Bass’s face as the crew works the lines, and Captain Monroe’s colors unfurl into the air – a flag with a jagged “M” stitched on it, surrounded by a circle of pale white. 

A black flag. 

… 

Charlotte Matheson sighs and twitches in frustration as a maid pins back yet another uncomfortable twist of her too-straight blonde hair.

“Hold still, dearie,” murmurs her torturer, twisting a second pin tighter than Charlotte would have believed possible. “Your father would be none too pleased with me, sending you out to town without proper apparel.”

“Margaret…” Charlotte sighs, taking the last pin from her maid before she can stab it into Charlotte’s skull. “I _am_ capable of dressing myself.” Of dressing herself, of riding a horse astride better than most men, of hawking and hunting and even a bit of swordplay she’d learned from a smith in town…but none of these things were considered appropriate activities for a lady, nor had she shared most of them with her father, so she leaves it at that. Her pursuits are her own business – a way to alleviate the crushing boredom of living in the tiniest port town between here and Tortuga.

At least it _is_ a port town. Something about the smell of the sea and the wind off the ocean sends a shiver of adventure through her every time.

The better part of half an hour later, Charlotte finally manages to shoo Margaret out, and proceeds to don her own additional “apparel” for the day. First, a hunting dagger, strapped to her calf under her many, billowing petticoats. Second, the necklace her mother had sent her several years ago – a silver pendant engraved with strange, Celtic filigree – and finally, a tricorn riding hat her father can not keep her from wearing (since it is, according to report, the latest riding fashion in London) and which Charlotte always thinks makes her look rather like a dashing sailor.

At the stables, she selects a horse for her ride down to the docks – sidesaddle, of course, since her father has instructed the grooms to help “preserve her reputation as a lady of standing.” Bollocks, she thinks (almost laughing at how rude that sounds even in her own head).

A short ride brings her to the docks, and her errand for the day. For years, since her mother’s unexpected and sudden departure, her father has charged her with the care of her younger brother, and today, Danny Matheson arrives home from boarding school.

Charlotte grins widely at the thought. She can’t wait to see him. As her horse’s hooves clop onto the wet cobblestone near the docks, she strains her neck for a view of the tiny merchant vessel on which Danny is supposed to arrive. She and her father had had a good chuckle over the name, and the older Matheson had even remarked that, had he been a superstitious man, he would never have allowed Danny to book passage on a vessel thus christened.

Charlotte’s neck is aching and her horse frustrated from pacing back and forth along the docks before she admits, with a sudden spike of nervousness, that the _Fool’s Errand_ has not yet made port.

…

The spray whips Bass’s face as the _Charm_ pulls easily alongside the straining merchant ship. They’re close enough now to read the name scrawled across her hull, and when Bass does, he laughs, deep and full-throated. 

The _Fool’s Errand_.

He certainly hopes not.

His “boarding party” stands at attention, bristling with steel and already hollering threats and insults at the crew of the _Errand_. “Ahoy, seadogs!” he snarls over the howls of curses and the crash of waves. “Take what you like, and the rest to the Locker, but _bring me the boy who answers to Matheson_.” 

“An’ the rest?” The Bosun’s voice, Strausser, piping up from the crowd.

Bass lets a slow, humorless smile slide over his features, and draws a pair of wicked, jagged-edged cutlasses. “Keep to the Code.”

A roar goes up from the men, ropes spin, grappling hooks fly, and the two ships crash together with a shock that sends half the men tumbling to the deck. Bass whistles his parrot to his shoulder – but of course, the damn thing ignores him – puts his short sword between his teeth, and swings from railing to deck, boots landing on timber already splattered with the first of the merchants’ blood. 

His first thrust brings a lanky, half-uniformed sailor up short, and Bass deposits the man in a pool of his own blood on the rapidly darkening deck. Normally, he’d hold here and revel in clashing steel and kill-or-be-killed mayhem, but today, he rams home cold steel into the guts of any man foolish enough to stand in his way, and stalks with single-minded purpose toward the captain’s quarters.

As he puts his hand on the latch, however, a shout carries from the crow’s nest of his own ship:

“Sails to port, Cap’n Monroe!” _Blast._ Another ship means competition, well-meaning rescuers, or, at the very least, witnesses. Not that he usually minds the last of those. Witnesses to this kind of massacre usually spread healthy respect among their seafaring brethren. Bass makes a mental note to burn the _Fool’s Errand_ , just to enhance the effect.

And then, (almost) the last thing he wants to hear: “It’s the _Julia_!”

 _Fuck_. The _Julia_ and its thrice-cursed, bilge-drinking, yellow-bellied dogfish of a Captain, despite their many faults, outgun the _Charm_ by nearly double. Time was, Bass could have taken the _Julia_ in a fair fight. But that had been two ships and eight years ago, and times had changed. And here, against the wind and already fighting on one side against the crew of the _Errand_ , it’s likely to be far from a fair fight. 

Bass lets out a roar of frustration and turns on his heel. He’s not so stupid as to not know when he’s been outmaneuvered, and he’s well aware that now, a second looking for the boy might cost him his ship, his crew, and his life. _It’s what Miles would have done_ flashes through his head, but he shoves it down with a _fuck that_ and keeps running. _He’s_ Captain, and he’s going to give the orders. And right now, the order is,

“Back to the _Charm_ , ye swabs! _Quick about it_ , or I’ll keelhaul the lot of you!All hands on deck and prepare to scuttle this wreck before we make sail!”

With any luck, the _Fool’s Errand_ will be underwater, and Danny Matheson and his pendant with the Matheson map (if the rumors are true) lost to the depths by the time the _Julia_ arrives.

Besides, Bass thinks, listening to the _boom_ of powder and the _crack_ of timber as the _Charm’s_ starboard eight-pounders blow holes in the _Errand’s_ keel, the rumors he’d heard included something he’s fairly certain Captain Neville does not know:

That there is more than one piece of the Matheson map. And that the second resides at this poor little merchant ship’s planned destination. The port town of Sylvania.

 _Magistrate Ben Matheson_ , Bass muses, wiping blood from his short sword and whistling again to the parrot – this time, it flies over and perches on his shoulder, _finally_ …then bites, _hard_ , at an open cut on his cheek (and if he were a superstitious man, he’d say the thing is a damned shark spirit in disguise and just likes the taste of his blood). _Will you be glad to see the pirate your brother sailed with for so many years?_

If he had to guess – he finally backhands the parrot off his shoulder before the thing drinks him dry, and it flaps off in sullen silence – he’d say that Ben is going to be less than pleased to re-make his acquaintance. 

In the distance, the _Julia_ ’s guns boom. Neville is a fool to waste shot from here, as if he thinks Bass can be intimidated. After all, it’s not intimidation that has him cutting and running now. It’s foresight.

...

When the sun starts brushing the horizon line again, Charlotte goes to find Nora Clayton. Nora, by the way the men talk about her, is the most talented shipwright between here and the West Indies. The fact that she is also a woman is conveniently overlooked on account of her unique skill set, and also, Charlotte suspects, on account of some other rumors Nora had never confirmed that she’d once killed her pirate lover in a vicious duel to the death.

No one wants to offend a woman who wins duels with pirates.

Charlie leaves her horse with a stablehand at the docks for a copper, dismounts without assistance and practically runs down the lane toward Nora’s tiny corner of the shipyard.

Predictably, Nora is outside, curly hair lashed back with a strip of pale cloth, bending to examine a long wooden plank. She’s working in only a pair of breeches and a white shirt, unlaced to the collarbone, and Charlotte thinks both that she looks just like a sailor and that her father would die of a fit if he ever caught Charlotte dressed like that. Which only makes her want to try it. The breeches and shirt look so comfortable, so light and flowing compared to her pounds of skirts and lace. 

Nora leaves off planing the wood and turns to greet her, but stops short at Charlotte’s expression.

“The _Fool’s Errand_ is late – Danny’s ship,” she blurts without waiting to be asked.

“How late?” Nora’s tone is even as she begins to move around her work area, picking up tools to take to the shed, and throwing the occasional item in a wicker basket.

“It was supposed to arrive this morning.”

Nora looks up at the sun, out at the water, and is about to turn back to her tools when she freezes, staring at something Charlotte can’t see on the horizon. She swears she sees a silent curse move across Nora’s lips.

Charlotte looks, straining her eyes in the same direction as Nora, but all she sees is flat, gray ocean; the setting sun; and a bank of clouds rimmed with a sickly gray-green. They don’t look like much, but it’s always possible there could be a storm moving in. Anxiety tightens her neck muscles as she turns back to Nora –

– who is walking away, basket swinging over her arm, having donned a pair of tall black boots when Charlotte wasn’t looking. 

“Nora?” The pretty shipwright turns to look at her, then motions with the arm holding the basket.

“Come on, Charlotte. We have someplace to be.”

…

Whatever Charlotte had imagined as Nora’s “someplace,” it was decidedly _not_ this dark, fetid waterside tavern, rife with the sort of men her father would kindly describe as “base ruffians.” Charlotte’s mind supplies the word “scoundrels” instead, because somehow that makes them seem more dashing and less, well, like the sort to make her skin crawl with fear. 

Nora walks straight to the back of the tavern, and Charlotte can’t miss the way that the men studiously ignore her presence there. They don’t look at her like she’s a woman – at least, not the way they’re looking at Charlotte, all leers and drunken, gap-toothed grins – but neither do they acknowledge her as they would a fellow man, with a shout or a raised mug of rum. They simply pretend she does not exist.

Looking at Nora’s smug grin, Charlotte thinks that perhaps that suits the shipwright just fine. 

As they reach a door to the back room of the tavern, Charlotte actually jumps at a loud _squawk_ and a flash of color to her right. Nora looks back at her, putting a hand on Charlotte’s arm and raising her eyes to the ceiling in what might be either amusement or mild irritation. Charlotte follows her gaze. 

It’s a _parrot_. Well, now she feels silly for jumping, and even more so when the parrot starts squawking at her – a high-pitched but unmistakable “Pretty wench! Pretty wench!” She’s halfway to asserting indignantly that she is certainly _not_ a “wench” before she realizes how absurd it seems to be offended by a bird, let alone _talk_ to one.

Then a voice drawls from behind the door:

“ _Shut up_ , Bassy.” 

Nora knocks, once, and immediately shoves the heavy door inward without waiting for a response. It’s even darker inside than in the rest of the tavern, but the red glow of a single candle illuminates a table cluttered with bottles – only one still half full – and a shadow, sprawled in a chair in the corner. 

The parrot flaps over Charlie’s head and immediately into the room, shrieking a piercing “Three sheets to the wind!” before Nora clobbers the thing with her basket and it swoops back outside. She motions to Charlotte to pull the door shut behind it, which she does, plunging them all into comparatively quiet, candlelit darkness.

“Thanks for that,” the rough voice says from the corner. Charlotte can’t tell if it’s a grunt of appreciation or a growl, but in the stuffy, unknown darkness, her nervous imagination is leaning toward growl. 

A hand reaches from the shadows to grab the half-full bottle, and retreats back into the darkness with its prize.

Nora drops the basket and takes two strides toward the corner. “Odswounds, it stinks like a distillery in here. Tell me you haven’t become as useless a drunk as the bartender tells me.”

The next thing that appears out of the darkness is the point of a cutlass, red-edged in the flickering candlelight. 

It rests, lightly, at the base of Nora’s throat.

Casually, from the dark: “State yer purpose.”

Nora sighs, and though Charlotte can’t see her face, she has the distinct impression if she could, she’d see the same eye roll Nora had given the parrot. For not the first time, she entertains a private wish to be more like the shipwright. She can’t imagine rolling her eyes with a sword at her neck. She can’t imagine what she’d do at all, actually.

Nora puts one finger on the flat side of the cutlass and runs it down the blade, lightly. Like it’s a private game. For no ostensible reason, Charlotte feels a flush rise to her cheeks. “The Matheson boy’s ship never made port.”

 _What?_ Why should this man care? Moreover, why was Nora’s response to Charlotte’s concerns not to run first to her father or even the harbormaster, but to this…this _rum lush_ in the back room of a filthy tavern? _“The Matheson boy,”_ she’d said, like the shadowy figure would know who that was. 

Like he’d been waiting for the news. 

Suddenly, Charlotte feels a bit like the first day her father had taught her to swim, when, in a fit of overconfidence, she had leaped into the water without waiting for instructions and been shocked when it immediately closed over her head, trapping her in a murky, upside down world from which no amount of her untutored flailing would release her.

Her father had pulled her out, looked into her wide, waterlogged eyes, and said, firmly (but kindly, always kindly), “If you want to float, Charlotte, _be still_.” 

Well, his words had served her well then, and they have served her equally well since. She resolves to _be still_ and wait to divine Nora’s purpose with this mysterious stranger.

Not a moment later, her resolve is severely tested when the cutlass point drops and the shadow rises from the corner with a snarl. She catches a brief flash of dark hair and yellowed teeth – and he’s _tall_ , taller than Nora by a head, and by Charlie almost twice that – the _clink_ of crossed sword belts and an ugly scowl, before the man leans forward into Nora’s face (and only then does Charlotte also notice that he’s more than a trifle unsteady on his feet). “ _The devil and his ship_?” he snarls, and Nora tilts her head fractionally toward the door.

“Have a look at the horizon and you tell me. The clouds fly his colors.” This last she mutters quietly, so much so that Charlotte suspects she’d intended it for his hearing alone.

Suddenly, the man appears to notice Charlotte in the room. Maybe he’s alerted by Nora’s conspiratorial tone, or maybe he’s just finally standing close enough to see Charlotte through what she’s sure is fairly rum-addled vision. He quirks an eyebrow at Nora, and, even in the candlelight, the gesture makes him look just a little less sinister.

“Charlotte Matheson,” Nora says, like that’s all the explanation he should need. “Charlotte, meet – ”

Whatever Nora is about to say is cut off as the man steps between her and Charlotte, the damp floorboards creaking beneath his boot leather, under the quiet _clink_ of his cutlasses. A step closer reveals a pair of dark brown eyes so shadowed they’re almost black. He has a two days’ growth of beard, at least, and over his left eye, there’s a tiny, slanting scar that looks as though it narrowly missed leaving him with a patch in lieu of an eyeball. From this close, the man smells like he’s _made_ of rum. 

“Miles,” he grunts like it’s an accomplishment, but he’s not sure whether it’s a good or a bad one.  

“ _Captain_ Miles,” corrects Nora, from the darkness behind him. 

“Captain?” Charlotte hears her own voice rise with hope and tries to smile at Nora around the man’s shoulder. If this man has a ship, and Nora has come to him for help locating Danny…  She’s about to open her mouth again when a _crash_ from the tavern outside echoes through the heavy wooden door. Miles and Nora don’t move at first, but a moment later, there’s a shout and a screech from the parrot and then a _BAM_ of powder exploding in a flintlock pistol, and then both of them shove Charlotte out of the way and throw themselves at the door into the tavern.


	2. Killers and Curses

 

By the time the door swings halfway open – flooding the room with an amount of light that, though it had formerly seemed dim to Charlotte, now seems blinding – Miles has somehow managed to draw both cutlasses, and Nora is holding two knives with a third having appeared on her belt as if by magic.

The tavern has turned into one enormous brawl. It’s impossible to tell who’s fighting who or _why_ , but Miles and Nora plunge into the fray and start knocking men aside as if they, at least, have figured out what’s going on. Charlotte hangs back for a second, watching as one man breaks a bottle over another’s head, but when a beast of a brawler drives a third man backward into the doorframe next to her, knocking him out cold and splintering the wooden frame, she decides she might be best off on the move. 

The downed man has dropped what appears to be either a very long knife or a very short sword, and Charlotte grasps the hilt in her hand – it’s heavy, but not _too_ heavy (her arm is used to supporting the weight of her hunting falcon), so she hefts it in a tighter grip, hitches up her skirts with her other hand, and wades into the melee, trying to keep as best she can to the edge of the fight, between the brawlers and the wall. 

It’s the work of a couple chaotic minutes to reach the entrance to the tavern, and in that time, Charlotte notices two things: One, that the pirate Nora has introduced her to is (and the term is rough, but so is what she’s witnessing) one _hell_ of a fighter. Two, the bar fight isn’t the only violence happening in town.

Before she even reaches the door, she hears shouting and the clash of steel from outside the tavern walls. Torchlight flashes back and forth across the street as people sprint through the shadowed alleys. Twice, Charlotte catches the gleam of cold steel in the hand of a passerby and ducks back into the tavern reflexively.

Of a sudden, the streets seem less welcoming than the tavern, especially since – she confirms with a look backwards – Nora and Miles (and Lord Almighty, the man fights like there are twenty of him) have already bested or frightened off most of the brawlers. But then there’s a _screech_ behind her and Miles’ parrot dives out the door, followed shortly by the man himself. As he passes, he grabs Charlotte by the arm and drags her bodily from the tavern and into the torchlit streets.

“Keep moving, Miss Matheson.” His order jolts Charlotte’s feet into motion almost against her own volition.

“Where are we going?” she calls after him, hitching up her skirts and breaking into a jog to keep up. Nora catches up with them a second later, blood dripping off her blade and from an open cut on her shoulder. Miles appears not to have a scratch on him.

Instead of answering her, he jerks a head at the short sword in her hand. “Can you use that?” he says in a tone that says he’s sure she can’t. 

“Yes!” It comes out as more of a defiant snap than she’d intended, but her point is made. 

“Good.” He comes to an abrupt halt at the end of the alley, and only when Charlotte lifts her eyes from the ground and Miles’ back does she realize what’s actually going on here. 

The port is under attack.

By _pirates_.

…

This is all going considerably better than expected, and that’s something of a rarity in Bass’s life. The chaos created by his crew’s sudden attack on the port has drawn nearly everyone from the surrounding estates to see what the matter is, leaving him free to walk through Ben Matheson’s front door unmolested.

The metallic double-clack of a flintlock hammer being drawn back arrests his steps.

“Bass Monroe.” The voice from the darkness is Ben’s. Older, yes, and smoother than his brother’s gritty rasp, but Ben’s. 

“Benjamin.” Bass grins and turns slowly, palms spread at his sides. “Aren’t you going to invite me in?” 

“You’re already in. I’m inviting you _out_.”

Bass makes a clucking sound with his tongue, but keeps his hands carefully where Ben can see them. “Hear much from your brother these days, Ben?” It’s a barb, and it’s meant to get a rise.

It works. Ben steps from the shadows fifteen paces down the hall, a flintlock pointed at Bass’s chest. Bass can’t actually see from here, but he strongly suspects the pistol is rusty. Or perhaps ornamental. Ben never was one for keeping up a decent weapons store – apparently, looting and hoarding hadn’t been a universally inherited Matheson trait. 

Bass takes a step toward him, dropping his hands toward the pockets of his leather coat.

Ben makes an angry, strangled noise, which Bass supposes is meant to indicate “Stop right there.” He rolls his eyes and takes a couple more steps forward, indicating the pistol with an offhanded wave. “If you can actually hit me with that from there, I promise to die of surprise.” 

To Bass’s mild surprise, Ben holds the flintlock steady. Bass puts his hands back up and stops walking. Just in case.  He cocks an eyebrow at Ben, and the man actually _smiles_ – not Bass’s cocky grin, but a small, sad smile. “I’m a better marksman than I was fifteen years ago, Sebastian.”

“But no more of a killer.” Bass’s words, delivered with just the hint of a sneer, finally pull the right line. A flicker of hesitation passes over Ben’s eyes. His grip on the pistol tightens as if he’s trying to force himself against his will to hold onto it…

Then Ben sags, dropping the flintlock to his side.

“That’s always been your problem, Benjamin,” Bass continues, closing the remaining ten steps down the hallway and wrenching the pistol from Ben’s grip. He uncocks it one-handed and backhands Ben across the face with the butt, hard enough to send the magistrate reeling to his knees. “No capacity for cruelty.” 

Bass studies Ben’s bleeding jaw for a long moment, considering whether he ought to also break the man’s leg to make his point. He settles for crouching next to Ben, drawing the dagger from his boot and jabbing the point into the side of Ben’s throat.

“Now.” He rocks back on his heels and grins conversationally, twirling the dagger slowly back and forth between the fingers of one hand until a thin line of red starts to seep from under the point. “You’re going to tell me where I can find Rachel’s other pendant.” 

Bass has killed a lot of people – and threatened many more – and as such, he’s almost painfully familiar with the way this goes. So when a look of genuine confusion passes across Ben’s face, and the magistrate manages to eke out a “What?” from under the point of the blade, Bass snarls and shoots to his feet, slamming the knife back into its sheath. 

“You actually don’t know what I’m talking about.” It’s not a question; he’s just so furious he can’t keep from saying it out loud.

And then it hits Bass like a jib to the back of the head. Rachel had never trusted Ben; hell, she’d run away with goddamned _pirates_ just to _get away_ from Ben. He curses himself for a blind fool. 

Because he knows who has the other piece of the map. 

And it’s not fucking Ben Matheson.

“Benjamin,” he begins, drawing his right hand cutlass and donning an ugly grin, “I appear to have made a…miscalculation. Might I inquire as to the whereabouts of your daughter?”

It’s a testament to Ben’s protectiveness of his children that his violent, unarmed lunge catches Bass _almost_ by surprise.

Almost.

…

It’s fully night, the moon casting an eerie sheen over the dark water, when the _Julia_ drops anchor just off the coast, two miles from Sylvania’s harbor. Captain Thomas Neville squares his shoulders and narrows his eyes at the coastline like he’s sizing it up for bombardment. 

Speaking of which… 

The _boom_ of the _Charm_ ’s guns reaches his ears across the still, moonlit water and Neville indulges in a single, dark chuckle. Raising the hook that long ago took the place of his left hand to scrape at his stubble, he nods to the crewman nearest him. 

“Lower the longboat. Let’s pay the Mathesons a visit whilst Cap’n ‘Bassy’ is busy blowing holes in the dock row whorehouses, shall we?” 

His crew jumps to immediately, and Neville is the first into the longboat.

After all, some things are worth overseeing personally.

…

All things considered, Charlotte is handling this reasonably well. Nora glances at the girl as they duck through an unlatched door into what’s obviously a blacksmith’s shop, and catches a flash of determination in the girl’s blue eyes that reminds her of – _CRASH_.

Miles throws himself through the door behind Charlotte, stabbing the man who tries to follow him and then dragging the poor dead devil inside.

He kneels, briefly, and turns the dead man’s face up to the dim light. His curse comes out as a low growl: “ _The damned devil and all his mates_.” He straightens, wiping his blades on the man’s coat and simultaneously nicking his coin purse. “Part of Monroe’s crew,” he confirms.

He’s known since he heard the _Charm_ ’s guns – Nora knows that – but the way he won’t meet her eyes as he says it, the way the set of his shoulders falters just a little…he’d been hoping to be proved wrong.

She tries to feel sorry for him, and can’t. Hope’s a fickle wench, and Miles ought to know it by now. Nora certainly does.

“He’ll be at the estate.” She tries to say it quietly enough that Charlotte won’t hear her, but it hardly matters when Miles sheaths his swords with a snarl and takes off out the door at a dead run.

Charlotte moves to follow him, but Nora swings out an arm to stay her path. “You want to go sprinting through the streets again in those petticoats? You’ll never keep up with him.” The girl flashes her a defiant glare and drops the short sword she’d commandeered (and has yet to actually use). Then, she bunches up her skirts in one hand, grabs the hunting knife strapped to her calf, and slices through as much of the billowing fabric as possible. It takes her a good thirty seconds – during which Nora repels two more unwanted advances at the door – but when she finishes, her skirts are slashed to her knees. 

If Ben Matheson is still alive, he’s going to hang Nora for this one.

Charlotte nods at Nora, plastering on a fierce grin that, again, reminds her of Miles, and, against Nora’s better judgment, the two of them set out at a fast run, out of town and toward Charlotte’s father’s estate.

…

Two miles to the Matheson estate from town, and Miles’ boots are wishing he’d stolen a horse. The ground is rutted with wagon tracks and churned to a muddy slurry by the fighting – and, now, the rain – and it isn’t his imagination that wherever Captain Monroe and the _Charm_ go, storms follow.

He’s at the bottom of a hill slipperier than a blood-soaked quarterdeck when he catches sight of the figure just leaving Ben Matheson’s house. And whether he knows it by the shape or the swaggering walk or the way his heart drops into his waterlogged boots, it’s definitely Monroe.

Which means he’s almost certainly too late. 

It’s sheeting down rain now, blurring the edges of Monroe’s shadow into oblivion, pouring down Miles’ neck under the collar of his leather coat. Good thing he’d downed the better part of two bottles of rum; he can hardly feel the cold. Doing his best not to slide around in the mud like a lubber who hasn’t found his sea legs, he skirts the edge of the hill until he’s nearly directly below Monroe. Then he simply finds the biggest rock he can lay hand to and throws it.

Miles has always been a good shot, maybe better even than he is a swordsman. The rock takes Monroe in the right shoulder – _hard_ – and knocks him off balance. To the pirate’s credit, he manages to keep his feet mostly under him as he spins, slips, and then slides down the hill, and they’re both accustomed enough to fighting on rain- and blood-soaked decks that by the time he reaches the bottom, both men have their swords drawn and meet with a _CLANG_ loud enough to set the rain droplets to shivering.

For a few seconds, the only sounds are the pounding rain, the distant thunder, the slick slide and splash of leather boots in mud puddles, grunts of exertion, and the near constant ringing of cold, wet steel as the two pirates give no quarter, and take none.

 _Clang, clang_. Bass breaks silence first – and of course he’s Bass here, not Monroe, both of them fighting for their lives with – _against_ – each other. “Still here, Miles? Thought you’d have drunk yerself into an early grave by now – sad pirate without a ship and all that.” _Clang, clang, RASP_ as Miles’ blade slips against Bass’s and _twists_ , and the other pirate manages to keep his hold on the cutlass only by leaping backwards. Neither of them have drawn their second sword, mostly because balancing in this blasted mud takes the full use of their off hand and arm.

“Rather no ship than a cursed one,” Miles rejoins mildly, but he can see the angry fire that lights in Bass’s eyes.

“And whose fault is _that_?” the other pirate roars, lunging at him in a slide that takes him just an inch too far past the opening in Miles’ defense. Miles shores up the weakness, turning to parry Bass’s blade with a shove that sets the other man off balance. Bass tries to turn, but now he has too much momentum and no purchase, no leverage on the slippery ground. With a shout, he loses his footing and slams face-first into the mud.

Miles is on him before he can turn over, one knee in Monroe’s back – and he’s Monroe again now that Miles is holding a blade to his neck – and the other hand reaching for Monroe’s sword arm…

…until Bass, in an incredible feat of snakelike-ness, twists his right shoulder back far enough to _punch Miles in the ribs with the hilt of his cutlass_. Something _cracks_ , and Bass throws him like a storm wave under a jolly boat, flinging Miles into the mud next to him.

There’s a second when Miles scrambles to get his cutlass between him and – _CLANG_. Bass simply rolls over onto his back, swinging his sword arm wide and whipping the blade straight down at Miles’ chest. Miles barely gets his cutlass there in time, and now he _is_ cold, despite all the rum, mud from the ground soaking into his pants and sneaking through every crack and edge of his coat into his shirt. Bass snarls a cry of frustration and spins away, rolling to his feet as Miles rolls to his. 

Then there’s a _boom_ not from thunder, but from the _Charm_ ’s guns, a mile and a half off, and Bass freezes, obviously torn between finishing Miles and obeying the signal from his crew. At the second shot, he snarls again and sprints off in the direction of the town. 

Miles snorts – his breath turning to smoke in the cold rain – as he realizes he must look just like Bass, standing here in frozen indecision. After Bass into town, or up the hill to…to what? Check on Ben? Why in the seven hells does he think he still owes his posh and genteel brother _anything_ –

– oh right, that whole “stealing his wife and then getting her killed, leaving her children motherless” thing. Goddamned pirate with a bloody _conscience_ – he’d tried so damned hard to drink it to death, but apparently the thing was harder to kill than the blasted Reaper herself.

He “dries” his cutlass ineffectively on the inside of his muddy coat, sheathes it harder than strictly necessary, and slips his way up the muddy hill to Ben’s house.

When he finally staggers in the front door, there’s a blood trail leading halfway up the stairs. Ben Matheson is sprawled on the landing, and Miles was right, back when he’d first seen Bass leaving the house: He’s too late.

He charges up the stairs anyway, the mud from his boots sloughing onto the polished, stone-tiled floor and blending with Ben’s blood. “Ben?” It comes out as a half-cough, something the old pirate will attribute to the cold and the rum and _not_ the tightness in his throat.

“Rachel?” _Sink me._ Even dying, Ben still manages to twist the knife. 

“Miles,” Miles manages through clenched teeth. He’s actually starting to _shiver_ , and he hadn’t remembered the _Charm_ ’s curse bringing a temperature drop along with the storm, but hellfire, he supposes it could have got worse over the past eight years.

“Miles…” Ben breathes his name on a sigh, reaching one hand up toward his stab wounds like he’s trying to search his pockets for something. “Charlotte…”

“Safe in town with Nora. Ben – what did Bass want with you?" 

“Pendant.”

 _Fuck._ Bass had given up that thrice-cursed quest _years_ ago, when Rachel had disappeared, along with all of the pieces of the map to that godforsaken island…

…and _fuck_ , _she_ _wouldn’t have_. Not even Rachel would send that kind of damnation down on her own family – on her _children_?

But she’d been desperate, and dying, and if Bass had backed her against a wall, then… 

“Ben, do you have it? Did Rachel send you a pendant?”

Ben’s breath actually _gurgles_ , and he can’t shake his head, but Miles can see the confusion in his eyes. “Charlotte…please, keep Charlotte safe…”

Miles nods, because what else can he do, although he could choke on the irony of the request. Asking the pirate who’d stolen your wife to protect your innocent, just coming-of-age daughter? (Of course, the Charlotte he’d seen back at the tavern was a bit rougher around the edges than he expects Ben would suppose…but damn it, he is _not_ going to turn the girl into a goddamned _pirate_ ; he ought to be handing the hangman his own boots just for _thinking_ it.)

Ben’s lips are still trying to form words, but Death sweeps them away with the hem of her black cloak as the last rise of Ben’s chest shudders to a halt. And Miles always hates this part – he swears he can _feel_ the Reaper walk into the room (or onto the deck of his ship) whenever it happens, and perhaps he’s just a superstitious pirate, but she always seems a little too cozy with him when she passes by. He steps back, steeling himself for the familiar cold brush against his soul.

For the first time ever, it comes with a whisper. _Look_.

Miles jolts, putting hand to cutlass, and imagines he hears the faintest chuckle as the presence, much colder than the mud or the already cold storm, passes by. And then he _looks_ , because he can’t not.

And there _is_ something about Ben’s injuries he hadn’t noticed before. While Ben’s every breath caused them to ooze blood, they had all looked like sword wounds. But now… Miles draws his dagger and parts the fabric of Ben’s waistcoat to get a better look. There’s a particular angle to some of the wounds, and sometimes a twist, from a weapon much shorter-bladed and oddly curved….

A hook.

Nora and Charlotte crash through the door behind him as Miles actually stops breathing for a second. _Neville_ –

“ _Father_!” Charlotte’s scream echoes off the walls, and Miles tenses automatically and turns.

And there he is. A _pirate_ , a pirate she _doesn’t know_ , kneeling over her father’s body with a bloody knife. He sees Nora realize it about the same time he does, but it’s too late – Charlotte’s already turning and shoving the shipwright out of the way with a strength that sends Nora stumbling into the wall behind her.

And then the niece he’s just sworn to protect charges up the stairs to kill him.


	3. Of the Golden Hair

Hunting knife aloft like a raptor’s talon, Charlotte hurtles herself pointy-end first at the pirate with a preternatural strength. To Nora, Miles appears caught between wanting to spare his spleen from a vicious slicing and spare the maid the consequences of her own foolhardy assault. The confused result is two puppies locking jaws, whether for play or to the death only the dogs know. Charlotte’s blade clatters aside, replaced by bared teeth and brandished nails. Miles looks positively terrified he’ll inadvertently harm her. 

“Belay!” the pirate wheezes, dodging a punch that probably would have hurt Charlotte’s fist more than his jaw, as his parrot soars in from the devil-knows-where to have a peck at Charlotte’s eyes.

She swats, and _splat_ goes Bassy to the plaster with a miserable _squawk_.

Miles may curse the bird all he likes, but nobody lays a hand on Bassy without coaxing the hellfire out of the pirate. Just as Miles’ eyes narrow menacingly, Nora jettisons her body into the fray, thrusting the lass – regrettably – right onto the mangled chest of her dead father. With a defeated little _huff_ and single melodramatic _sob_ , Charlotte wrenches something off Ben Matheson’s body and races into the storm-cursed night, her cleaved skirts an ever-shrinking mushroom.

Nora extends a firm hand to hoist the dazed pirate to his feet. “What the blazes went on here?” she gestures at the corpse.

“That one-handed son of a whore and the devil gutted him with his fishhook.” Miles glares at the body as if he can resurrect it with the force of his anger alone.

Nora tenses. Captain Monroe is bad enough. Captain Neville is a demon with an eyepatch.

Miles finally turns from his brother’s corpse, receiving the hobbled Bassy into his hand and giving him a pat. Bassy stretches one leg and then the other, before waddling up the length of his master’s arm to his shoulder, more humiliated – if that be a parroty sentiment – than harmed. 

“I’m sorry for your brother, Miles, but we haven’t time. Charlotte’s no doubt headed for the ships!”

“The ships –” his bruised lip curls downward. 

“Aye. She’ll be after Danny. She has no one left in Sylvania now.” 

Miles quirks a skeptical eyebrow. Apparently, he doesn’t know Charlotte very well.

“She’s a determined lass,” Nora insists. “She’ll be out on the first ship she finds, seeking passage to the _Fool’s Errand_.”

“By the devil’s twisted tail, she’ll fall in with pirates!” Nora gives him a level look that clearly translates as **_You’re_** _a pirate._ “To the docks then!” he barks.

Nora catches Miles’ leathery sleeve with an unwelcome reminder: “You have blood on your hands, old friend. Finding the girl in time, let alone convincing her you weren’t the villain, will be nigh impossible.” 

However, Miles’ superfluously forceful shake-off and Bassy’s frantic _wait-for-me_ shriek suggest there’ll be no arguing over the matter. And Nora is smart enough not to voice her certainty that they’re going to be too late. 

… 

It takes but a moment, running full pelt down the muddy mound toward the docks, for Charlotte’s feet to cartwheel out from under her and send her careening straight into the heart of a furious pirate-on-pirate melee. She crashes squarely into a barrel and hugs its stout belly, peering around it to take in the spectacle. Some pirates are dueling with flintlocks, cutlasses, or daggers; others have devolved into mud wrestling, while the rain – now little more than a chilling drizzle – continues to claim the port town for the sea. Fires have been set all along the shipyard for no apparent reason other than to incite chaos. As Charlotte’s father once cautioned her, “Pirates live to provoke anarchy; they serve no other purpose.”

One ghostly ship with black flag flapping has already pushed off, its longboat evidently still ashore, as its occupants bellow to their captain: 

“Capt’n Neville: Away! For God’s sakes, away!” 

Charlotte’s eyes shift to the man she supposes is Neville, for he casts a side-glance at the corsairs, and in the process, receives a slice to the breast. The assailant has his back to Charlotte, but Captain Neville is revealed in the firelight to be a hideous specimen of savagery: A black patch obscures one eye while the other fixes his foe with a blood-shot stare. An unusually dull _thud_ of metal and bluish sparks enlighten her to the weapon in his left hand – no, _of_ his left hand – a cruel hook. The brawl shifts, and Charlotte glimpses the other pirate, whose right-hand cutlass has been struck to the mud but who seems to be making ample progress with the left blade. A sweep of Neville’s hook divests the man of his dripping tricorn, unleashing a torrent of filthy blonde curls. At last, he turns fully, eyes dazzling blue, _grinning_ , of all things – a full set of stained teeth set off by incongruously youthful dimples – and something happens in the pit of her stomach. _Blink, Charlotte. Blink!_

Then the blonde corsair drags his stuck cutlass from the ground hard enough to splatter mud over the entirety of Captain Neville’s waistcoat - and Neville looks far more affronted at this latest indignity than at the _slash to the chest_ \- and renews the fight armed with both swords. The curly-haired pirate’s grin splits even wider as he dances out of the reach of Neville’s hook… 

...and then he turns and accidentally catches Charlotte’s eye. There’s an odd, wild moment of...what? Recognition? Surprise? ... _Interest_? and the pirate actually freezes, thunderstruck, until Neville’s hook comes down, _hard_ , on his raised blade with a force that sends him sliding back several paces in the mud. 

For some reason, Charlotte is dying to see the outcome of the fight, but just then, another pirate crashes into the barrel next to her, knocking her almost to her knees. She forces her wits about her. It will not do to be accidentally killed in a portside brawl. She must find Danny. A quick look about reveals that the ship that flies the Black M is still docked, as swabs haul up booty from the raid. A shorter, thicker pirate with a red bandana and a gold hoop earring steps aside from supervising the cargo to holler toward the dueling pirates, “Cap’n Monroe, we’re almost loaded!”

Charlotte sees her chance and scampers across the docks and into the crate the stocky pirate neglects, refastening the lid and plunging herself into stifling darkness. She has to struggle for a few seconds to control her panicked breathing, praying that in the chaos of the brawl, no one has noticed her. From between the slats, she can make out the muffled voices of the uncouth. 

“What’re the captain’s orders, Quartermaster?” 

“If Danny Matheson is alive, he’ll be on the _Julia_. We’re to give chase.” 

“Chase down Neville? Blimey! And what does he want with the boy?” 

At this most inopportune moment, Charlotte feels her chosen coffin hoisted into midair and prays her impulsivity won’t land her at the bottom of the sea. But – if it does – at least she’ll see Father again. _Perhaps Danny, too_ , she thinks morbidly. She’s a hopeful sort, but she must admit, the terrible events of this day have shaken her confidence that her little brother still walks in the land of the living, especially given that every pirate in the Atlantic suddenly appears bent on claiming him.

And what prize could Danny possibly be?

… 

If it weren’t for the jangle of his swords and the creaking of his stiff joints, Miles would doubt he was running at all, instead caught in one of those dreams where – despite heroic effort – one ambles like a mosquito through molasses. Panic pools in his chest, and his sense that Nora believes this mission to be futile only further boils his blood. Because she’s right, of course. By the time they make it to the harbor, the _Julia_ is a considerable distance off, the _Charm_ nearer, but what good would it do him to swim for it? He’d freeze before he’d find a way up. 

With the snarl of a desperate animal, Miles grabs several bystanders by the cloaks, spitting, “Have you seen a lass with long, golden hair?” and each in turn shakes his head.

At last, the pirate relents and flops upon a barrel, eyes locked on those diminishing ships. Nora regards him reprovingly, as if to say: _There he is again, hanging the jib - that’s all he’s good for_. Yes, he knows he’s a miserable toad, knows that he and Nora could have reaped their share of happiness together if he’d ever managed to move on…from _her_. “Long, golden hair” – just like her mother’s. Even in death, Rachel Matheson would eternally be the thorn in his side.

 _The crisp, salty breeze slapped his cheeks in affection, and Miles was feeling fine for the first time in_ … _weeks? Months? Or had it been a year that he and Bass had been at odds? Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum had at some indeterminate point along their joint voyage given way to merciless, sickening killing. For a time, Miles had been able to convince himself that this was truly living free – it was the rest of society that was the problem – until the small voice within began to whisper: The devil is **here**._

_An aberration on the silk-smooth waters caught Miles’ peripheral view. “Ahoy to the aft!” he beckoned to Jeremy, prying the spyglass from the Quartermaster’s fingers._

_Miles’ mouth fell open. “Well sink me: It’s her!”_

_“Who, sir?” Jeremy asked with alarm, silently tussling with Miles’ fingers to reclaim his property and have his own look. Finally, Miles relinquished the glass._

_“My brother’s wife: Rachel Matheson.”_

_“Curse me for a canting mugger; how the devil could she have rowed out here? Alone!”_

_Miles shook his head in utter disbelief and gave orders to haul up her rowboat._

_She was worn and ragged ‘round the edges, but otherwise the same heart-stopping beauty as ever. Bass and Miles took her into the captain’s quarters, each trying to mask his astonishment. Something was amiss about the whole business._

_“Miles, Bass. It’s been ages. You are a welcome sight for a weary traveler.”_

_Miles coughed. “Rum?” he offered from a mug, and she drank indulgently._

_“I need your help. I believe this is an expedition your kind won’t be able to resist.”_

_“Oh? And what, pray tell, might that be?” Bass prompted incredulously. After all, half the fun of the pirate’s life was the lack of endgame._

_“Treasure. The largest store in the world.”_

_“And what would you know of treasure?” Bass again, but, this time, with an ominous snarl. Miles reflexively stepped betwixt the captain and the woman._

_A smile played at her lips. She was a brave one – Miles granted her that. “Oh, I know this treasure better than I know my own children. My family has guarded it for generations.”_

_“Huh. If what ye say be truth, then why the rot would you share it with us?”_

_Rachel’s azure eyes shifted to Miles and momentarily took the wind from his sails. “I need passage, for one thing.”_

_“And for another?” Bass demanded, eyes traversing from Rachel to Miles. Miles saw the precise moment Bass discerned it. “Ah. **Him**. And what of the code, Miles? No women aboard the ship. Bad luck,” he turned to inform Rachel._

_“I wager the men will be willing to make an exception for treasure,” Miles offered, though Rachel’s proposal caused him inexplicable disquiet. Miles may have been first mate to Bass’ captain – a consequence of a lost bet – but they shared in all booty and decisions equally, or so they said. In the end, it seemed Bass always fell in line behind Miles._

_Sure enough, Bass bowed curtly. “Now, Lady Matheson –”_

_“Rachel will do just fine.”_

_“Rachel, then – where might we be finding these riches?”_

_“Tower Island. It’s impossible to locate with human senses alone, but this map will light our way.” Rachel unfurled a dusty scroll that, oddly, looked to be mostly ocean save two isles. The larger of the landmasses was marked X._

“Miles. Are you going to waste your last breath moping, or are we going to commandeer that feeble excuse for a ship and rescue Charlotte?” 

“What ship?” Miles shakes off the memory, the booze, and the shock of his almost complete reversal of fortunes. His eyes follow Nora’s extended pointer finger. “What – _that_? We’ll never catch them in that hunk of flotsam.” 

“ _You_ can catch them in anything, Captain Matheson. Besides, I know the captain of that vessel. He’s a lumpish pumpion. We’ll have him overboard in no time.” Her face is set. 

Miles’ jaw swings open but produces no reasonable objection. “Aye. To the pumpion.” 

… 

_Miles away across uncharted ocean..._

Three-point-five square miles of coral reef – barren save a few copses of coconut palms – Parris Atoll is Rachel Matheson’s whole world. Perhaps just to taunt her that there _could_ be more if she hadn’t lusted after Miles, if she hadn’t been cursed, if she hadn’t gotten on Bass’s sour side, Bass had left her with a spyglass. This, along with something Miles didn’t know she’d nicked – his earring – are the only artifacts that remind her she is still human, at least by daylight. She must look like a wild thing – a waist-length tangle of golden hair, tattered men’s clothing. She subsists solely on coconut, fish, and seaweed and has the protrusive elbow- and knee-bones to attest to it. 

Each morning, Rachel slips her feet through a figure eight of rope and encircles the trunk of her favored tree with a makeshift noose. Up she climbs, until she reaches the palm’s spiky canopy, grasping its elephant-skin bark with her feet and pausing to look through the glass. Three hundred sixty-four days in a row the object she seeks is obscured by fog. But one day each year, the clouds part like a punk’s petticoats to reveal her – Tower Island, a ring of impenetrable jungle hugging an imposing volcano, so magnificently penile, Rachel has dubbed it a _she_ for amusement’s sake. Besides, Rachel knows that what lies within that phallus is a really expensive box…of treasure, of course. _Her_ treasure. And while she’d do anything to reunite with it, she’d also do anything to prevent another soul from reaching it. 

Fastened atop her eight-story palm, Rachel carefully peers at Tower Island. Nothing but a cream puff of fog. No surprise there. But all of a sudden, the strangest feeling settles over her – the hairs on the back of her neck rise. She’s certain that if she swings her glass due north, a ship will be gliding toward the atoll’s trap door. But no – there is nothing there but endless blue. It must be her sanity, fraying at the edges. Even still, she can’t shake the feeling that she may not be alone for much longer. 

… 

Danny Matheson’s wrists are beginning to shred under his rusty bonds. There’s no use in resisting anymore. Fate has locked him into _this_ , of all stories: One moment, on a ship traveling home from boarding school, and the next, assaulted by a band of pirates only to be taken prisoner by the next set to come along. His whole life, pirates had seemed the stuff of fairytales, and now the world seems to be crawling with sea lice. Last he saw of the _Fool’s Errand,_ Davy Jones was devouring its hull – poor, miserably-christened vessel and all of its kindly crew. Danny aches for departed friends, though he knew them only for the weeks of his voyage. Now, locked in restraints above deck and pummeled by a vengeful squall, the booms and blazes from the shore inform him that his _old_ friends and family are under attack, and he can do nothing but sit and pray. 

The _Julia_ – his floating prison – pushes off again, the last glimpse of Sylvania he’ll probably ever see, and shortly thereafter, that maleficent pirate, with the patch and the hook and that damned capuchin monkey, scampering sideways toward its master, is back on deck. His boots _clop, clink_ before Danny, who peers up through the part of his sopping, blonde hair. 

“My sister – did you see her?” Danny barks before the captain can speak. It’s the only power Danny has – being an incorrigible nuisance. 

The captain’s eyes widen and then narrow. “Nay, but I wouldn’t fret on that, son. We’ll seek her out soon enough. Your father, now, _him_ I saw. And he was not long for this world when I left him.” 

“You murdered him!” Danny roars, lunging despite his manacles.

The white-faced monkey chatters and ducks behind Neville’s back, the only bit left in view its black, humanlike fingers curled over the pirate’s shoulders. Danny has quickly determined that the monkey is an unqualified coward. 

“No, it wasn’t I who killed your father,” Neville laughs. “‘Twas the pirate Monroe after the other one of _these_.” Neville unfurls the chain that bears the pendant Danny has worn since youth – the only token he has of his mother. 

Instinctively, Danny attempts to grab for it, but being bound of wrist, spits his bile at Neville instead. In a flash, the falcate appendage is at his throat, collapsing his windpipe. 

“I wouldn’t, boy, if ye want to live. I have little use for you now except on my crew. You’d make a fine corsair if you put your mind to it, but the decision is yours. Stay in your bonds till ye perish or take me oath. And now, it’s time for Jason and I to turn in. Jason – where the devil? – what are you doing back there, ye wretch?” As he releases Danny’s throat, he swings the wayward monkey around to his chest and ambles to his quarters. 

With Tom Neville gone, the chill passes. Danny slumps in his chains to take stock of the ship – its pirates busy setting a course for the open sea. One slightly unsteady buccaneer, with an enormous plume in his rain-drenched hat, climbs halfway up the main mast to call out: “‘Haul Away Tom,’ me hearties! And put some spirit into it!” 

This is the first Danny’s heard of a pirate shanty, and from what he can discern, the plumed pirate calls out the verse, while the men launch in on the chorus, heaving ropes in time with the rhythm of their voices. It has the comforting effect of a mother’s heartbeat to her babe nestled in the womb, and he begins to find that sailing - rain or no - is not altogether unpleasant.

Got a patch on his heart  
And a monkey for a wife.  
So much as let out a fart,  
He’ll run ye through with his knife.

Haul away Tom,  
‘Way haul away Tom!

Titivate that deck,  
Hoist the mizzen, ye sprog,  
Cuz he don’t give a feck,  
If ye work like a dog.

Haul away Tom,  
‘Way haul away Tom!

Tom best watch his back,  
‘Cause one o’ these days  
A swab might just snap,  
‘N set his bloomers ablaze.

Haul away Tom,  
‘Way haul away Tom!

A smile toys at Danny’s lips in spite of himself. These seadogs aren’t quite loyal to their captain, it seems. Perhaps the pirate’s life is not the bitterest alternative to starvation after all. Could it be that if Danny plays his cards right, he’ll see his sister, father, and homeland yet? He stills his chafed wrists and straightens his back to better observe the sailors.

Aye, where discontent blooms, munity may blossom.


	4. The Charmed Life

How do you know when you’ve passed the point of fetid, oppressive discomfort to being on your last drop of air, rapping at the lid of Davy Jones’ locker? Because Charlotte has been in this crate for so many hours, she is dizzy. In her delirium, her brain vacillates woozily among the pirate who slayed her father – who (despite being three sheets to the wind) composes mass murder like he’s the sword-swinging version of Johann Sebastian Bach – the pirate with the bright cerulean eyes and charming dimples she glimpsed at the docks, and finally, her father’s blood-smeared corpse, shredded as if by beast rather than man. A debilitating pang informs her that she mustn’t dwell on the latter, or she’ll lose her wits.

Instead, she’d do well to ponder the situation into which she’s stupidly plunged herself. She’s aware that she’s on a pirate ship, but being as she took the opportunity when the stocky pirate was distracted to conceal herself hither, she’s unsure who captains this vessel. In truth, does it matter? He’s certain to be a rogue, who’ll make her walk the plank…that is, if she doesn’t suffocate in here first.

_No, it won’t do to die in a box_ , she asserts, wrenching aside the crate’s lid. She owes it to her brother to at least attempt to get to the _Julia_ on the off chance that he is still alive. Besides, she’s a first-rate swimmer – could maybe even outstrip Davy Jones himself. Getting the wheezy Danny ashore, if it comes to that, will be a stiffer challenge.

Charlotte has no idea if it’s day or night, but it is silent as church here in the ship’s hold. The sea is so choppy, she can scarcely find footing to extract herself. Amused, she thinks, _So this is what they mean by finding your sea legs_ , before she’s flung jaw crackingly to the wall, swapping mirth for fear. They’re in the middle of another storm, or is this the old one they’ve chased to sea? All hands are on deck, which explains the quiet.

If she remains down here much longer, she risks revisiting what was probably her last meal as a patrician, but as Danny had taken puckish delight in reminding her time and again: Women are bad luck on ships unless bare-breasted and affixed to the prow. Her laced bosom and (shorn) silken skirts will surely draw unwanted attention above deck and make a rescue attempt on Danny nigh impossible. If ever her exhaustive literary education – unladylike, perhaps, but insisted upon by her father – has served her, it is now. A plan clicks triumphantly into place: _I’ll swap petticoats for breeches and fashion Viola into Cesario._

…

“Reef the mainsail!” Captain Neville shouts into the ferocious gale.

Danny only manages to discern words from cacophony because the sodden captain is close enough to touch - that is, if Danny had use of his hands. For nearly two hours this storm has bludgeoned the ship, Danny’s innards shoved so violently to and fro that his legs have gone wobbly. Weak with nausea, he must find a way out of his chains, or he will surely collapse.

He might as well be in India, for he understands not a word of the sailing orders he’s praying will save his life. The _Julia_ has until now been “reaching,” which to Danny’s untrained eye appears to mean sailing across the wind, a rough and terrifying ride. Waves have begun to crash over the sides, one cascading directly over Danny’s head, striking him to the wet deck and pumping his lungs full of stinging saltwater. He hiccups and gasps for a full minute before he regains his wits enough to hear Neville desperately revise his plans.

“Abandon course and point, ye swab!” he orders the frantic helmsman.

Danny has no idea what this means either, but he catches the captain’s one good eye and bellows with every ounce of strength left in his puny lungs, “Captain, let me help! I can climb!”

The rascal Neville fixes Danny with a sneer, as a pirate is flung off the main mast squarely onto the deck before him. Without a word or a hand to the reeling pirate, he hands his key to the monkey, who’s been hiding under the brim of his hat, and barks at Danny, “Aye, then. But if ye cross me, ye’ll be fed to the storm!”

Running at full sideways gait, Jason is crawling up Danny’s leg before he can prepare himself for the strange, boney fingers. In a moment, he’s unshackled and presents to the Quartermaster, who orders him to the fore mast. A sailor shoves rope into his hands, but it is only a moment before a tremendous crash of wave catapults Danny into midair. He clenches his jaw and squeezes his eyelids together in preparation for a collision with solid wood that never comes. Instead, it’s water that almost shatters his ribs. He’s gone overboard.

Charlotte is the swimmer - poor Danny can scarcely manage air, let alone water. Brine invades his lungs, distending them gruesomely beyond their natural capacity. The slate-gray surf offers him unceremonious burial. Then, blackness…

…then, _hands_ , buoying his afflicted body, lifting him upwards. Droplets of moisture filter into the corners of Danny’s eyes - a strange elixir that revives him from eye-sockets to torso to thighs to toes. _Am I touched by angels in heaven?_

He _must_ be at the Pearly Gates, for as he awakes, the sun breaches the smoky clouds to baptize him in warmth. A round, rosy face framed by golden curls, which tumble down upon his cheeks, is leaking her own tears into Danny’s eyes and singing:

“The Sea doth choose the man to free,  
Of faith and purity;  
For thou with special destiny,  
She heeds his dying plea.”

“That’s it, lad. Wake now. They call me Maggie.” 

…

Apparently simply donning boyish canvas doublet, Monmouth cap, and breeches does not a corsair make. When Charlotte emerges from the wooden womb of the ship reborn a man, a black, angry sky pelts her with hail, while a gale robs the air of all sound but banshee howl. It takes Charlotte just one hesitant step across the slicked deck to find herself cheek to wood. _Ah - real sailors don’t wear shoes_ , she notes, as she hefts far enough onto her elbows to make out a pair of dirty feet ominously close to her nose.

The feet belong to a gnarled old swab with one tooth left in his head, whose glare manages to convey surprise, wariness, and resignation all at once before he demands that she:

“Get yer ass up and heave, ye sprog!”

She bounces up in embarrassment, kicks off the offending shoes, and fumbles for rope. Almost instantly, the fragile skin of her unseasoned hands breaks open, darkening the hemp with her blood. Her forearms scream as she yanks with all of her might.

The exertion goes on for hours, but Charlotte is glad to have pain to distract her from the ship’s sickening sway. All of a sudden, she glimpses _him_ – that magnetic, fair-haired pirate from the docks – screaming orders with a very bedraggled but stoic parrot perched on his tricorn. Could it be that _he_ is captain of this vessel? Within her tight chest, her heart flip-flops like a dying fish, and she can scarcely catch her breath. She pauses at the ropes just long enough that Ole One Tooth kicks her in the calf from behind to set her back to work.

She catches several more glimpses of the blonde captain during the night - once at the helm, soaked to the bone and wiping rain out of his eyes with the sleeve of his coat as he peers at the roiling seas ahead; once much closer, as he comes from nowhere to leap across the deck to the aid of a sailor who would have gone overboard without his quick action; and once illuminated by a flash of lighting as he grips the rail of the quarterdeck in both hands and howls taunts and curses at the wind with a perfectly wild grin. After that last time, Charlotte loses track of everything but the screaming pain in her hands and the shouts of the buccaneers. When the morning sun finally shatters the spent storm clouds, the sailors slump down one by one to rest their strained muscles, passing celebratory rum. Too exhausted to do anything but the same, Charlotte waves off a sloshing bottle and collapses against a barrel, momentarily convinced she’s won her game.

Just when her eyes begin to droop, the blue-eyed, be-parroted pirate appears before her – hands on hips, swords slung low in his belt, blonde curls dripping under his hat. He looks _tired_ , but obviously not too tired to let her presence go unnoticed. Abject terror, breathlessness, and a sentiment Charlotte can’t quite discern instantly paralyze her. The green parrot scampers onto the man’s shoulder to fix Charlotte with a homicidal stare. She meets its gaze, and it cocks its head, perhaps reconsidering its contempt.

“And whom might we have the pleasure of meeting?” The pirate’s lip curls in a manner that suggests the real pleasure lies in the torment to come. Indeed, shifting anxiously behind him is a scamp with a face like gravel, stroking a cat o’ nine tails like it’s an actual cat. There’s something off about that seadog. The handsome pirate’s lively eyes flick to the pendant Charlotte wears at her breast and back up again. At least, she hopes it's the pendant he's looking at. She'd had the sense to bind her chest flat with strips torn from her destroyed skirts, but the bindings have loosened somewhat after an entire night of heaving and hauling on ropes, and she's not sure the effect will hold up in the light of day.

Unnerved, Charlotte sticks out her hand, as is the custom of men. “Charlo – Charlie – Matheson.” She prays her charade is persuasive, as the effulgent eyes continue to bore into her – er, _him_. The pirate with the cat o' nine tails jerks his head up suddenly when she gives her name, looking a bit more closely at her, and for a desperate moment, she thinks that perhaps the stumble has given her away.

But the Captain merely smiles more widely. “I see,” the pirate nods, raking his blonde stubble in thought. He jabs out his hand to meet hers, and the parrot scuttles down his arm to take a not-entirely-unfriendly peck at her hand, still oozing from ship work.

The tense hush of the corsairs and the man’s vice grip on Charlotte’s hand upends a pint of acid into her belly. _So this is how I die._

Instead, to her astonishment, the pirate merrily declares, “Welcome to the _Charm_. I’m Captain Sebastian Monroe. Me Jack o’ Swords, Strausser,” he nods at the menacing pirate, who licks his craggy lips, “and this is my parrot, Mathy. Apparently, he likes you.”

“He’s biting me.”

“He bites those he likes,” the captain assures. “Well, I’m in a bit of a quandary here, ye see. I should send ye straight to the bottom of the ocean – our habit with stowaways -" Charlie's stomach clenches in real fear, and she very nearly drops to the deck right there, having suddenly lost the ability to direct her legs, until the pirate continues: " - but you’ve done us a favor in helping to save me ship, and I’m in a bit of a rush.” His eyes flick down to her pendant once more, and she reflexively grabs it. The corners of his mouth turn up. “I’ll expect ye to work for yer passage, of course, and swear by the Code.”

“The Code?” She's not familiar with any particular Code, but Charlotte has seen enough hangings to know that swearing any kind of oath as a pirate earns you a quick drop and a sudden stop.

The captain draws a sword and holds it out sideways. “Jack o’ Coins! The Code.”

The pirate with the red bandana and earring swings down from his perch atop the cabin to snatch a scroll off its door and press it onto the point of Monroe’s cutlass.

“This here’s Quartermaster Jeremy Baker and the Code that orders the _Charm_.” Monroe thrusts the sword - and scroll- toward Charlotte, the protruding blade-point threatening her nose. “Read ‘im aloud, lad,” Monroe urges with his – she has now realized – signature, and not altogether disagreeable, smirk cemented in place. His blue eyes actually _twinkle_ with mirth, and the look would be handsome on a less threatening man. On him, it reminds Charlotte of the fairies in _A Midsummer Night's Dream_ \- dangerous in its capriciousness. The combination is fascinating - the same contrast that had drawn her to him at the docks, she now realizes - that a man with such a good-humored smile can deliver such absolute violence.

Charlotte only realizes how long she's been holding the pirate's gaze when Monroe shakes the tip of the sword in annoyance, causing the parchment to crackle. A flash of something else flickers behind the mirth in his eyes - and is it suspicion? Can he possibly know her secret, and if so, why has he not exposed her to the crew? But it doesn't _seem_ like he's suspicious. In fact, if the idea wasn't plainly ridiculous, she would think he was almost _uncomfortable_ with her staring at him. _Yes, that must be it_ , she chides in her head, resisting the urge to roll her eyes at herself. _The great Charlotte Matheson, terror of pirate captains everywhere._

She's _still_ staring, and now the captain actually looks annoyed. "Read," he orders, curtly, his smirk faltering for the barest half second. 

Charlotte clears her throat, attempting to deepen her voice but achieving little more than adolescent boy, and reads:

_Pyrate’s Code._

_I. No Quarter except by command of the Captain. Every man shall obey his Captain ~~and First Mate~~ in all respects, as if the ship were his own, and as if he received monthly wages._

_II. Shares of booty are provided as follows: The Captain ~~and the First Mate~~ to have two full Shares; the Quartermaster to have one Share and one Half; after whom they draw equal parts from the highest even to the lowest mariner. It is severely prohibited to usurp anything, in particular to themselves. Yea, they make a solemn oath to each other not to abscond, or conceal the least thing they find amongst the prey. The fund of all payments under the articles is the stock of what is gotten by the expedition, following the same law as other pirates, that is, No prey, no pay._

_III. He that shall be found Guilty of Cowardice in the time of engagements, shall suffer what Punishment the Captain and the Majority of the Company shall think fit. If any Man shall offer to run away, or keep any Secret from the Company, he shall be marooned with one Bottle of Powder, one Bottle of Water, one small Arm, and Shot._

_IV. If any Man shall lose a Joint in time of an Engagement, he shall have 400 Pieces of Eight; if a Limb, 800._

_V. To keep their Piece, Pistols, and Cutlass clean and fit for service._

_VI. That Man that shall strike another whilst these Articles are in force, shall receive Moses’ Law (that is, 40 Stripes lacking one) on the bare Back. Every man’s quarrel is to be ended on Shore, at sword and pistol. When the parties will not come to any reconciliation, the Quartermaster shall accompany them on Shore with what assistance he thinks proper, turn the disputants back to back at so many paces distance; at the word of command, they turn and fire immediately. If both miss, they come to their cutlasses, and he is declared the victor who draws the first blood._

_VII. No woman to be found amongst the crew._

_VIII. No man to game at cards or dice for money._

_IX. The lights and candles to be put out at eight o’clock at night; if any of the crew, after that hour remain inclined for drink, they are to do so on the open deck. No Man to snap his Arms, or smoke Tobacco in the Hold, without a Cap to his Pipe, or carry a Candle lighted without a Lanthorn._

_X. Every person who shall offend against any of these articles shall be punished with death, or in such other manner as the ship’s company shall think proper._

The recitation had not gone entirely smoothly – Charlotte had stumbled over the odd moments when “first mate” appeared struck from the code, earning her reproof from the crew, though the captain merely deepened his grimace. Then there'd been Article Four, at which she'd audibly gulped, and Article Seven, which she'd been so determined to overcome, her voice had artificially boomed, nearly betraying her.

Nevertheless, Monroe is shoving a freshly-dipped quill into her hand and nodding for her to sign the document, which she nearly flubs, having just invented her male moniker (and having grazed the captain’s skin with her finger, producing a curious flutter in her belly).

“On certain ships it be the custom to swear on a Bible, but not ours, Charlie. Nay. On this ship ye swear on the skull of the last bilge-sucking worm who offended the code,” the captain gleefully explains, now exchanging quill for said human remains, the bone cool and slick in her clammy grasp. Charlotte well knows that the penalty ashore for sworn piracy is hanging, but it’s all she can think to do.

“And now the oath! Jeremy, would ye like the honor?”

“Nay sir, the honor is yours,” Baker genuflects.

Monroe gives a curt but chivalrous bow to his Quartermaster and begins, “Repeat after me. I, Charlie Matheson –”

“I, Charlie Matheson.” Her hand twitches on the skull.

Monroe hesitates, as if composing on the spot: “Promise to pillage and loot, be brave and hirsute, an irascible brute…er…” He scratches his whiskers.

The pirates cackle and cheer: “Hear, hear, Capt’n!”

The captain waves them to silence and tries instead, “All ye here who are not yet a pirate but wish to be, say aye!”

_For Danny._ Charlotte has barely choked out, “Aye!” when Monroe interjects with a filthy grin:

“Now lad, if ye wouldn’t mind refreshing my memory on Article Seven of the Code…”

...

A squall isn’t the choicest reintroduction to the pirate’s life, but the _Mayhem_ – Miles’ newly commandeered and christened ship – has managed to pull through. Now the real irritation begins: finding the _Charm_ after Mother Nature has yanked out the tablecloth from beneath the tea set, scattering ships like china pieces. _That’s women for you_ , he thinks as he eyes Nora. Nora has tied up her ebony locks into a checkered kerchief, which along with her linen shirt and breeches, almost obscures her prettiness if you couldn’t just make out the single curl that has escaped its confines or the gentle round of breast. _Yes, women are distracting._ But noticeably absent from his ship’s code is the proscription of women, a clear sign he’s gone soft in his break from buccaneering. Hell, Nora is his most trusted sailor – she might as well be his right arm. They’ve agreed to begin their search for Charlotte on the _Charm_ , the second to depart of the two pirate ships. At the very least, Miles knows Monroe’s mind like he knows his own. He’ll find the knave.

Hard to believe he is at sea again – _Captain Matheson_ – this time on a suicide mission to recover his niece, who, up until a few hours ago, had served as little more than a remote reminder of familial estrangement. A sigh so heavy whistles from betwixt his teeth that several swabs whip heads in his direction. He scowls at them until they get back to work. Some of them are mutineers from his split with Monroe, while others came with the vessel - the latter intimidated into serving under him. It’s not an easy crew to manage, but Miles suspects once they have a fight under their belts, they’ll fall in line. While Miles is well aware he's a good-for-nothing sot, it's in battle that his meager talents shine.

“Wahhh!” wails Bassy from Miles’ shoulder in perfect imitation of a crying human baby. He’s been doing this lately to provoke his master.

“Avast, ye squiffy,” mumbles Miles grumpily.

“Avast, ye carbuncle! Ye beslubbering maggot-pie!” Bassy responds gaily.

Vexing to be so outdone in insults by one’s own pet.

Miles always resorts to violence first and attempts to sweep the bird from its perch into the deep, but alas, Bassy’s got wings and is too clever in his old age. He nibbles mildly on Miles’ ear before narrowly avoiding a second swat and flaps his way over to Nora’s shoulder. Nora glances back at Miles under a cocked eyebrow but wisely keeps mum.

The intoxicating salty breeze improves Miles’ spirits just enough that he leaps gracefully to the quarterdeck – saluting it in passing, as is tradition – and plops noiselessly next to his sailing master: Jim Hudson.

“What say ye, Hudson?” Miles inquires. Hudson, too, had defected from the old ship, but they never speak of those days. Having a true mate at the helm is liable to imbue Miles with a false sense of security. He’d do best to remember that his voyage is certain to end in a ship-to-ship encounter with his embittered and bloody-thirsty archrival Captain Monroe and likely to devolve into a three-way showdown with the _Charm_ and the _Julia_.

Jim and Miles agree on a course (as the crow flies), before Miles strides over to the railing to admire the ficklest and fairest of them all: his Lady the Sea. Still choppy from her snit but winking sparkles from the sun, she plunges him into unwelcome reverie.

_No duels aboard the ship – every pirate knows that. So per the Code – his and Bass’s law – they’d gone to shore to settle scores, Jeremy, as Quartermaster, overseeing the grim ceremony, his jaw clenched in disapproval like a fist._

_Bass had implored, Why? so many times that day without answer that he’d choked on the last one and given way to private, inward spiral. They’d thrown pistols aside, because both knew – unspoken – that the measure of a man was his blades. Jeremy counted out the paces, and they turned, sweat oozing from Miles’ temples. Bass didn’t move – why didn’t he move? So Miles did – lunged across the expanse, flinging both cutlasses into a savage X, clanging metal on metal as Bass resisted._

_First cut wins, rules say, but Miles caught an edge on his brother’s cheek, eliciting another brief hesitation on Bass’ part and then another gasp of betrayal as Miles resumed his assault without regard for Bass’ preservation. This was to the death. With another clash, Bass dropped a sword, precipitating a primal dive forward of blonde crown into Miles’ chest, and they collapsed in the sand, fumbling with the remaining blades – grappling, punching, growling at each other like beasts._

_They stopped only when they heard the click of cocking pistol. Jeremy’s boots loomed beside them. “You quit that, or I’ll shoot you both.”_

_Shame, rage, and agony balled together in Miles’ stomach as he slunk away to a dying chorus of “Miles!” from the only things left to care about in the world – his brother, his friends, his men, his ship._

Miles rocks gently with the rhythm of the waves and tries not to echo Bass’ question: _Why?_ Because Miles isn’t smart enough to articulate where one pirate draws the line and another doesn’t, and why there is even wrong in it. Rachel would have known – she was always the clever one. But there’s no point in bemoaning what’s lost.

Bassy has found him again, the parrot’s extravagant wingspan blooming and folding as he resettles on Miles’ shoulder.

“Ahoy, bucko. Splice the mainbrace!” Bassy screeches.

“There’s an idea,” Miles agrees, popping open his hipflask and taking a draw, before splashing some into the cap. Bassy pecks indulgently at the whiskey, summoning in Miles a confusing wave of affection for the bird whose companionship he loathes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those whose (obscure) Shakespeare is a bit rusty, in _Twelfth Night_ , Viola dresses as Cesario, a eunuch, to serve as page to the duke.


End file.
